Reversing the Tale
by Nurannoniel T.I.M.E
Summary: BW. T for char deaths. Dinobot grieves after that battle that should have claimed him, not that putrid rodent...


Reversing the Tale

By Nurannoniel Amruniel T.I.M.E.

~Dedicated to the Rattrap and Dinobot of my family, Monty and Honey, Nov. 4, 2004 and Apr. 1, 2007 respectively. They may have only been dogs, but our crew will always be a little emptier without them. Certain elements are based loosely on the true stories of their passings.~

Optimus watched as Dinobot did his hourly pacing around the base in beast mode. It had been a few days since the battle at the valley, but the raptor was still unable to accept the consequences. Optimus couldn't blame him; everyone was still in some degree of shock. The eerie quietness that had enveloped the base only made the loss feel colder, darker… unreal. But it was real; _he was really_…

With a loud snap of his powerful jaws, Dinobot spun around and declared that he was going on patrol. Optimus nodded absently. There was no point in trying to deny him. As the lift vanished from view, Cheetor stepped out of the shadows.

"He's taking Rattrap's death harder than the rest of us," The cat-bot sighed, his shoulders falling at the thought of his lost friend.

"They may have bickered constantly, and even acted as if they hated each other, but the truth is that they had become brothers," Optimus placed a comforting hand on Cheetor's shoulder before adding "we'll all need time to adjust, some of us more than others." He gave a reassuring squeeze to the younger mech's shoulder before disappearing into the shadowed corridor.

Cheetor gave one last fleeting glance to the lift.

"And maybe some of us never will…"

***

Run!

He had to keep running!

The beat of Dinobot's talons upon the dried, cracked earth drowned out the pounding force of reality. It couldn't be real! The rat was too surly, too stubborn to die! Dinobot shook his head violently in an attempt to physically clear it of the heavy thoughts that plagued him.

Pebbles crumbled and fell under Dinobot's talons into the valley below. Somehow, the ex-Predacon had stopped at the edge of that hated place without realizing where he was. Recognition dawned on him, and a cold dread gripped his spark.

No, not here! Anywhere but here…

As a warm sunbeam came over Dinobot from between the grey midday clouds, a dizzying tiredness washed over him as well. Oh, how the wretched vermin would have teased him for this… Dinobot laid himself down on the cliff's edge and allowed his gaze to drift to the faded ashes of the battleground beneath him. As he did so, time rewound itself in his mind's eye to only a few days ago, when this very valley was being consumed with chaos and flame…

***

Dinobot had witnessed Megatron ordering Rampage to destroy the distant mountain, the projected image from the Golden Disk changing to match the now decimated scenery his minion had created. He had suffered the shot from Tarantulas only to reciprocate, and then follow his former comrades to the valley where an ancient band of proto-humans lived. He had sensed his coming death in the battle that would follow, determined to meet it with a warrior's honour and conviction. He had fought the Predacons off one-by-one, from slicing Inferno in two with his sword to stuffing Waspinator down the barrel of Rampage's tank mode. These tasks he had been prepared for; they were a warrior's skilled and rehearsed actions, battle protocols so familiar to him that they were little more than instinct. What he was not prepared for was what came next; though he had left the Maximal base in relative secret, he had informed his current team mates of Megatron's plans the moment he had learned of them. He had not expected any of them to reach the valley in time to join the battle, but as he rose from the backlash of Rampage exploding, a flash of copper and silver exploded out of the smoke and flame to intercept a shot of cyber-venom from Quickstrike's snake head. The small blur of transmetal furry fell to its knees as Dinobot fought to shoot the fuzor in turn. As his optical lasers failed to activate, the mutant Predacon let out a laughing taunt:

"So, what's a warrior without weapons?"

Dinobot growled before leaping over the form of his fallen friend, snarling as he struck, "A warrior still!" He finished dealing with Quickstrike before turning to the pile of sparking metal now behind him.

"Rattrap?"

"Uhh, I don't feel so good…"

The raptor laid a gentle hand on his spark-sworn brother. "You should not have intervened, rodent."

"Couldn't let ya have all da fun, choppah-face," Rattrap replied as he sat up. Dinobot had to brace his friend's shoulders as the rodent swayed in his place. "Where's da rest of 'em?"

"I have dealt with all but one…" The battle-damaged saurian peered into the darkness before them, his piercing gaze resting on a large boulder. "Megatron."

"My ears are burning, yesss…" purred the Predacon tyrant as he stepped out from behind his hiding place."Dinobot, Rattrap! What a delightful surprise. Let's see, where are we now?" Megatron held up a clawed transmetal tyrannosaurus hand, counting off his advantages. "I have the Golden Disk, I have the power to change the future, and the only remaining obstacles in my path to unimaginable glory are the two of you. Exhausted, damaged beyond recovery… defeated." Megatron transformed, scowling.

"Not… just… yet…" growled Dinobot. Together, the two Maximals prepared to charge the Predacon leader, who once again held up his claws in a scolding manner before pointing his fusion cannon towards a restrained proto-human.

"One more step, either of you, and it's raining bits of early anthropoid, yesss."

Rattrap dropped his gun arm immediately. Dinobot hesitated before standing down as well, a scowl of frustration crossing his faceplates as he did so.

Noticing the former Predacon warrior's hesitation, Megatron said "oh dear, how positively Maximal of you. You were weakened even before you started, Dinobot; weakened by _compassion_." Megatron powered up his fusion cannon, the terrible purple glow casting demonic shadows in the smoke-darkened clearing. As the transmetal tyrant leveled the weapon at the Maximals (and away from the proto-human), Rattrap lunged forward. In his cyber-poisoned state, he did little more than glomp the Predacon leader around his knees. It was, however, enough of a distraction that Dinobot was able to roll forward, grabbing a thick wooden branch as he recovered his step and attacked the tyrannosaur with it. Together, the two Maximals beat on Megatron with bare fists and primitive weapons, forcing him back several steps and away from the early human. Megatron quickly recovered, however, shoving Dinobot back with one arm while shooting Rattrap with his cannon. The rat-bot flew backward with a pained yelp, landing several feet away. He did not rise. Dinobot stumbled, but poised himself for another attack on his former leader.

"Really, Dinobot, a stick? Against a transmetal, when even another transmetal could not damage me with his own reinforced alloy?" Megatron waved nonchalantly to the fallen rodent. "I think not." Megatron took several steps towards Dinobot as the ex-Predacon tensed for battle, glancing briefly at something moving behind his opponent. "Oh please. Face it Dinobot, you're old technology; obsolete – ha! – what can you possibly do?"

"Improvise."

Several bright blue bolts from an energy weapon flashed across Megatron's back, causing him to stumble. Dinobot used the Predacon's moment of weakness to slam the branch he had been wielding into a large conical rock, flipping it in his grip so that the wider flat edge faced forward. Leaping upward, he smashed the improvised battle hammer into Megatron, sending the Predacon reeling. The energy restraints holding the proto-human simultaneously flickered and died.

Dinobot caught the Golden Disk as it flew from Megatron's grasp. "Choppuh-face," Rattrap gasped, "toss it!" The raptor nodded and flung the disk into the air, his friend taking aim with his pistol and shattering the ancient relic. As the shards fell back to earth, both Maximals collapsed. Moments later their remaining team-mates arrived, sending the damaged and defeated Megatron scrambling for cover from their weapons fire.

***

Dinobot snorted as a butterfly landed on his snout. The saurian's servos tensed as he prepared to snap his head back to trap it in his jaws, but the intention died on his lips as the insect took off once more. Dinobot watched it lazily drift over the valley.

As badly damaged as he had been his wounds were cumulative but moderate; Rattrap, however, had received several point-blank blasts during the battle. Cheetor and Silverbolt had helped Dinobot stand, only for him to collapse again by his dying friend's side. In his energy-drained state their last mournful, brotherly jabs at each other seemed little more than a dream to Dinobot.

Or perhaps it was more of a nightmare, he mused.

Rattrap looked tired, but somehow accepting of his fate. He had smiled at Dinobot before sighing and contentedly laying his head in his adopted brother's lap. Dinobot bleakly recalled Optimus reciting some blessing or another for the rat as his spark rose up and away from the tortured valley floor. A brief moment later, Dinobot had succumbed to stasis lock and remembered no more.

The first moment he had awoken from the R-Chamber, he had expected to hear the rodent chastise him for fainting after a battle. Even now, gazing out at the burnt valley, Dinobot was sure that the rodent would sneak up on him at any moment. In the days since Rattrap's death, he had become restless, hearing the rodent's footsteps around every corner and catching his scent in every breeze. At one point Dinobot had even gone to the vermin's quarters to look for him to find only a full cube of energon abandoned on the floor.

Dinobot could not bring himself to go near it.

Finally he found himself here, laying only meters away from where his best friend and brother had fallen, at last coming to terms with the fact that Rattrap was really gone.

_Rattrap was gone_.

Dinobot's head shot up as reality settled in and his warrior programming came back to him. When a warrior fell honourably in battle, he fell. It was protocol to accept the loss in the ranks and move on, compensating (_not mourning, never shame them by mourning_) for the loss when necessary. Rattrap, despite his outward cowardice and small stature, had been a warrior who had fallen honourably in battle. Dinobot could either choose to honour his fallen comrade as such, or to disgrace the rat's memory by continuing to sulk about it like a spoiled sparkling.

The raptor rose from his resting place, the warm sun bathing his brown beast mode's hide as he turned with determination from the sight of the battle field.

Dinobot snarled.

He chose the former.

***

It was odd that now, even eons later, Dinobot could perfectly recall the events surrounding the death of one of his closest friends.

The Beast Wars had long since ended, the face of Cybertron forever changed in its aftermath. Though the Maximals had eventually captured Megatron, the Predacon tyrant had escaped and had somehow arrived back on their homeworld before them. Megatron had released a virus that contaminated the transformation capabilities of every 'bot on Cybertron, only for their rebellious group of Maximals to be reformatted by the Oracle into new Techno-organic forms immune to the virus. After another gruesome and drawn-out war, Optimus Primal had sacrificed himself to defeat Megatron once and for all, throwing both of them into Cybertron's core and initiating a planet-wide reformatting. After that, Cybertron had been reborn into an era of techno-organic peace.

Though their new techno-organic forms were long-lived, they were no longer immortal as their ancestors once were; age could now plague them. Dinobot, despite his warrior ways, had never fallen in battle as he always assumed he would. Ironically, the foe that now threatened to claim him was a foe that he had no way to defeat. Lying in his berth paralyzed from failing systems, Dinobot let out a long, low snarl.

Disgraceful.

Some of his old comrades had stopped by to see him in the past two days, weeping for him, but Dinobot refused to look at them. His time had come; why could they not accept it?

A power surge rocked forth from his ailing core, sending the once proud warrior into a spasm of pain. As his hydraulics released, he felt even weaker than he had before. Perhaps it was a good thing that the rodent was not alive to taunt him…?

Dinobot shuttered his optics, chest heaving as he struggled to breathe. Yes, at least he could pass in peace…

Dinobot's eyes shot open as a familiar scent wafted over his sensitive nose. He weakly tilted his head to stare out into the brightly light room, looking for the source of that horrible stench…

"Rattrap…?"

***

As the last of the light faded from Dinobot's eyes, Silverbolt turned to hold Blackarachnia while Cheetor respectfully laid a golden hand on the warrior's brow.

"And the rest… is silence."


End file.
